Historical Representations

Abstract

I am most interested in how certain social identities are constructed, and how they make certain practices possible but others unthinkable. Like Roxanne Doty, I examine ‘how meanings are produced and attached to various social subjects and objects, thus constituting particular interpretive dispositions that create certain possibilities and preclude others’ (1996: 4). I am less interested in ‘what’ questions, since these often prompt historical narratives that mistakenly assume a simple linearity of events. I am also less interested in ‘why’ questions, which tend to assume that a certain set of choices and answers pre-exist. Rather, we should investigate how those options and the larger possibilities of action get established. Doing so allows for greater understanding of the processes and interactions within international relations.